Is the end in sight? A study of how and why services are decommissioned in the English National Health Service

Iestyn Williams; Jenny Harlock; Glenn Robert; John Kimberly; Russell Mannion

doi:10.1111/1467-9566.13234

Is the end in sight? A study of how and why services are decommissioned in the English National Health Service

Iestyn Williams, Jenny Harlock, Glenn Robert, John Kimberly, Russell Mannion

Adult Nursing

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

13 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The decommissioning of a health‐care service is invariably a highly complex and contentious process which faces many implementation challenges. There has been little specific theorisation of this phenomena, although insights can be transferred from wider literatures on policy implementation and change processes. In this paper, we present findings from empirical case studies of three decommissioning processes initiated in the English National Health Service. We apply Levine's (1979, Public Administration Review, 39(2), 179–183) typology of decommissioning drivers and insights from the empirical literature on pluralistic health‐care contexts, complex change processes and institutional constraints. Data include interviews, non‐participant observation and documents analysis. Alongside familiar patterns of pluralism and political partisanship, our results suggest the important role played by institutional factors in determining the outcome of decommissioning processes and in particular the prior requirement of political vulnerability for services to be successfully closed. Factors linked to the extent of such vulnerability include the scale of the proposed changes and extent to which they are supported at the macrolevel.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	441-458
Number of pages	18
Journal	Sociology of Health and Illness
Volume	43
Issue number	2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.13234
Publication status	E-pub ahead of print - 26 Feb 2021

Keywords

Case studies
health-care reorganisation
health-care decommissioning
disinvestment
health policy
health system change

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10.1111/1467-9566.13234

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title = "Is the end in sight? A study of how and why services are decommissioned in the English National Health Service",

abstract = "The decommissioning of a health‐care service is invariably a highly complex and contentious process which faces many implementation challenges. There has been little specific theorisation of this phenomena, although insights can be transferred from wider literatures on policy implementation and change processes. In this paper, we present findings from empirical case studies of three decommissioning processes initiated in the English National Health Service. We apply Levine's (1979, Public Administration Review, 39(2), 179–183) typology of decommissioning drivers and insights from the empirical literature on pluralistic health‐care contexts, complex change processes and institutional constraints. Data include interviews, non‐participant observation and documents analysis. Alongside familiar patterns of pluralism and political partisanship, our results suggest the important role played by institutional factors in determining the outcome of decommissioning processes and in particular the prior requirement of political vulnerability for services to be successfully closed. Factors linked to the extent of such vulnerability include the scale of the proposed changes and extent to which they are supported at the macrolevel.",

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note = "Funding Information: Case study three involved the planned decommissioning of a charity end of life (EOL) home support service which provided non‐clinical support to patients, their families and carers. The service comprised a named nurse co‐ordinator who provided regular contact and home visits, alongside telephone access to a {\textquoteleft}care bureau{\textquoteright} providing triaging and 24‐h nursing advice and support. The service aimed to increase the percentage of patients dying in their preferred place of death, improve support for carers, and reduce unnecessary admissions to hospital. It had been funded by the NHS since 2009 with the contract due to expire at the time of fieldwork. In October 2013, a six‐month contract extension for existing patients was agreed to enable a review of the service, and this was followed by a three‐month managed closure process beginning in April 2014. This was the only one of the three decommissioning case studies to proceed to full implementation during the lifetime of the research project and therefore something of a {\textquoteleft}positive outlier{\textquoteright} both within the sample and the wider literature (Flyvbjerg, 2006 ) (Box 4 ). Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2021 Foundation for the Sociology of Health & Illness. Copyright: Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.",

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AU - Mannion, Russell

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N2 - The decommissioning of a health‐care service is invariably a highly complex and contentious process which faces many implementation challenges. There has been little specific theorisation of this phenomena, although insights can be transferred from wider literatures on policy implementation and change processes. In this paper, we present findings from empirical case studies of three decommissioning processes initiated in the English National Health Service. We apply Levine's (1979, Public Administration Review, 39(2), 179–183) typology of decommissioning drivers and insights from the empirical literature on pluralistic health‐care contexts, complex change processes and institutional constraints. Data include interviews, non‐participant observation and documents analysis. Alongside familiar patterns of pluralism and political partisanship, our results suggest the important role played by institutional factors in determining the outcome of decommissioning processes and in particular the prior requirement of political vulnerability for services to be successfully closed. Factors linked to the extent of such vulnerability include the scale of the proposed changes and extent to which they are supported at the macrolevel.

AB - The decommissioning of a health‐care service is invariably a highly complex and contentious process which faces many implementation challenges. There has been little specific theorisation of this phenomena, although insights can be transferred from wider literatures on policy implementation and change processes. In this paper, we present findings from empirical case studies of three decommissioning processes initiated in the English National Health Service. We apply Levine's (1979, Public Administration Review, 39(2), 179–183) typology of decommissioning drivers and insights from the empirical literature on pluralistic health‐care contexts, complex change processes and institutional constraints. Data include interviews, non‐participant observation and documents analysis. Alongside familiar patterns of pluralism and political partisanship, our results suggest the important role played by institutional factors in determining the outcome of decommissioning processes and in particular the prior requirement of political vulnerability for services to be successfully closed. Factors linked to the extent of such vulnerability include the scale of the proposed changes and extent to which they are supported at the macrolevel.

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ER -

Is the end in sight? A study of how and why services are decommissioned in the English National Health Service

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Keywords

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